Quote:
Originally Posted by sedated
 Didn't Mizzou go to the SEC championship game in 2 of its first 3 seasons in the SEC?
If the Big 12 was such a joke of a conference that left teams "unprepared", why did a middling Big 12 team go over and have so much instant success? |
The issue wasn't the Big 12 not preparing Missouri.
The issues were:
1) Missouri's coaching staff did a poor job adjusting it's recruiting strategy. It overreacted to the SEC move and moved into Georgia and Florida too quickly. It also didn't effectively adopt a strategy to sell Midwest kids (Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Illinois, Chicago) on the idea of playing in the SEC (Kentucky has had great success with this in Ohio, amongst kids left behind by Ohio State).
2) The university replaced the mostly competent AD with a complete buffoon who mishandled the difficult 2015 protests, and made several bad decisions in the wake of that (forcing Pinkel out then; hiring Barry Odom; forcing Odom to agree to dismantle the player development system in place and also forcing the strength coach behind that program out).
3) Odom was a failure in recruiting and as an on-field coach.
All indications are they got it right with Drinkwitz, and he's rapidly changing the picture/scene.
Basketball is an example of what happens when you make a bad hire, then double down on it with the worst hire in the past quarter century in your sport, then come back from it by overpaying for a really mediocre guy.